In with the New

In 2013 I hope to do a few things differently, hopefully better, and one thing I'd like to work on to help me accomplish that is blogging. I've got a handful of goals for the new year, some travel goals, school goals, body goals, etc, and I'd like a place to house my progress and struggles so I can look back and see tangible evidence of growth towards my goals.

I've tried blogging here in the past and have gotten disenchanted when I didn't get many comments and felt like no one was reading my stuff. This year I hope that'll change a bit but mostly I just want to document life for my sake.

When I write here I often feel like I need to hone what I'm writing... to put my best foot forward and work from there, and I'd like to work on changing that a bit this year. Yes, it's important to be able to effectively communicate your point, but sometimes that point takes a while to figure out and in the meantime you might learn from just talking it out. I plan on doing some of that talking here.


(I think some of this stems from my professional background... I'm in a sociology graduate program and I'm being taught to say very specific things with very specific words and encouraged to read and revise until exactly what I intend is written on paper. Words that seem similar, like disparity and inequality, or mental health and mental disorder, are written on extensively and often the subject of intense debate. I tend to shy away from some of these words because of the... crap that surrounds the word... the tradition that uses it, what they mean when they say someone has mental health, etc. Here I'm going to try to leave that at the door and talk about what I think regardless of the multitude of things it could mean. And hopefully my intended meaning will be clear, and if not, I'll say more if that's requested.)

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To begin:

Right now I'm hiding at school while Chase (my boyfriend) and his dad, stepmom, and sister invade my house. I'll have it back in less than 16 hours. Time could not pass fast enough tonight. I'm so happy Chase's parents split when he was younger, if only so that I can easily have a favorite future-in-law (his mom). And with those few words, I'll stop before I say something (else?) I shouldn't.